


so here we are

by fakeplasticlily



Category: Free!
Genre: First Kiss, M/M, Misunderstandings, Relationship Advice, Skype, Tokyo (City), but he gets by with a little help from his friends, makoto is oblivious
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-21
Updated: 2015-02-21
Packaged: 2018-03-14 10:01:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3406514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fakeplasticlily/pseuds/fakeplasticlily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He turns around at last, and Makoto doesn’t need to even look in his eyes to read him this time because it’s the same thing he’s been asking himself for months now.</p><p> <i>Why are we still like this, Makoto? Why do I feel like even with all these new places, all these new people we could be with, after all these years we’ve been together, there’s nowhere else I’d rather be?</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	so here we are

“Hey,” Rin says, as he rubs down his damp hair with a towel, but it doesn’t take long for his grin to turn into a mild frown as he cranes his neck around, as if he’d be able to look around Makoto’s room through the Skype window.

“Where is he?” he says, setting his towel on top of his head and facing Makoto again.

Makoto has been expecting the question, but he can’t quite meet Rin’s eyes. Gaze darting everywhere but at Rin, he says, “Was there… something you wanted to tell him? He—um—he left early, had some stuff to—”

“Wait a minute.”

Makoto’s eyes dart back up to meet Rin’s, and at once he feels like he’s been X-rayed; piercing crimson eyes seeming to look right through him. “What?” he splutters, feeling terribly exposed.

For a long moment, Rin squints at him. At last, he huffs a quiet laugh. His face softens.

“You guys had a fight, didn’t you,” he says. It’s not a question.

Defeated, Makoto’s shoulders slump and he passes a hand over his face as he lets his guard down completely at last. “You could tell?” he mumbles, eyes lowered.

Flashes of Haru’s hurt, betrayed face burst through the flimsy walls he’d put up in his head, as if they’d be able to help him stop thinking about it. Fourteen minutes, nine seconds. That’s how long it had worked.

That’s how long it had been since Haru had backed away from him in this very room, face crumpling like a bad dream—because hadn’t Makoto promised to himself that he’d never let him wear that face again? But he’d lied to him—only to protect him, yes, but he’d lied and Haru had found out, and even then he’d stood tongue-tied, unable to tell him the truth and make him worry for his sake again.

Makoto looks up after a while, because Rin doesn’t answer. When his eyes meet Rin’s, he’s momentarily taken aback by how soft he looks. Shaking away the damp locks of hair plastered to his forehead, Rin lets out a sigh.

“Of course I could fucking tell, you idiot,” he says, voice exasperated but fond. “When it comes to this kind of thing, you guys are about as subtle as Momo thinks he is when he attempts to catch his precious stag beetles.”

“You guys…?” Makoto repeats. Had he spoken to Haru too? It wasn’t usual for Haru to call Rin on his own; mostly it was Makoto who made their weekly Skype calls when they slept over at either of their flats every Saturday, but sometimes Haru would be distracted—over a particular technique, or before a race—and he’d call Rin himself and they’d talk late into the night about technicalities Makoto could barely keep up with as he finished up his coursework.

Coursework that he was always so, so behind on of late that he’d stayed up all night finishing it up, which was why he’d slept through his morning shift at the bookstore he worked at, which in turn led to him having to take the evening shift and postponing his usual Saturday night plans with Haru—and of course he’d had to go and fucking lie to him about it. 

He remembers the last time Haru had walked in on him passed out asleep in the middle of his shift, the sixteen missed calls on his phone, the furrow in his eyebrows, the worry in his face, the break in his voice as he’d told him, “Don’t overwork yourself, please.” He couldn’t do that to him again.

(Except he’d ended up doing worse, and if he could only go back in time and—)

“Oh come the fuck on,” Rin says, and Makoto comes back to earth. “I’ve seen Haru after he’s had a fight with you, you guys are just the same. Like married couples, you know, who even start acting the same because they’re together all the fucking time.”

“We’re not—” Makoto begins, blushing, then stops and shake his head.

_I’ve seen Haru after he’s had a fight with you._

Festival lights, the ocean shimmering. Haru’s face, contorted in frustration, near unrecognisable. Words he’d never imagined they’d say leaving their mouths. Letting go. A glorious burst of fireworks. And Haru’s face, draining of colour, draining of everything he had.

“He was moping the entire fucking time, it was disgusting,” Rin says, leaning back on his arms and looking up at the ceiling. The towel slips off his head to lie around his neck. A classic Rin move: I’m not a model; objects artfully arrange themselves around me to heighten my sexiness on their own. 

“He refused to swim, didn’t even bring his swim trunks, can you believe that?” he snorts. He gives Makoto a once-over. “Sat on the beach just like you’re sitting right now.”

Makoto starts in embarrassment and lets go of his knees he’s been hugging to his chest. He’s always known the fight would have had its toll on Haru too, but somehow it’s something he’d subconsciously always closed his mind from thinking about too much.

It was hard enough as it was, he doesn’t think he could’ve handled Haru’s hurt along with his own.

“I just—” Makoto drops his head between his knees and stares down at his feet. “I just don’t know what to do… It’s just that when—when it’s Haru, it’s—” He waits for Rin to say something, hoping for a diversion that will prevent him from having to put this into words anymore. But Rin doesn’t say a thing.

With a groan of resignation, Makoto lifts his head. “We’ve always thought we could read each other perfectly, but the fact is—we can’t. Not always. There are always going to be things we can’t read from each other. And that’s fine… More than fine, in fact. Sometimes I feel like I still find out new things about Haru every single day and if I could do that for the rest of my life that’d make me happier than—”

He stops abruptly, eyes darting up to meet Rin’s—unreadable—for a moment before shifting away in embarrassment. “I mean…” he explains quietly, “I didn’t want Haru to think I’d been overworking myself again, so I told him to come over to mine later than usual. But I wasn’t expecting him to go to the café where I told him I’d be at with my friends after class, and when he finally came over here and asked me what I’d really been doing, I couldn’t tell him.”

It sounds silly even as he says it: do friends ever fight over things like this? 

“It’s because we can read each other almost all the time, we forget sometimes how important words can be,” Makoto says softly, almost to himself, “And that’s what makes it harder when we find we can’t read each other.”

When he looks up, Rin is looking at him almost expectantly, as though willing him to saying something more. Then he exhales, and the feeling is gone so swiftly that Makoto is sure he must’ve imagined it.

“Hey, are you trying to psychoanalyse me?” he gasps suddenly in mock affront, remembering himself, “Sorry for rambling on about myself this entire time by the way, how are things with you?”

Rin gives him a look. “It’s fine, Makoto. The world won’t stop turning if you take a moment for yourself and let someone else share your problems, you know.” A sparkle comes into his eyes, and his lips curve into a smirk. “But since you asked, I have regionals coming up this weekend, and you bet I can’t wait to serve those Aussies their first taste of some authentic Japanese-style total annihilation.”

“You know,” Makoto smiles at this, before he can stop himself, “I always used to envy you a little.”

Rin raises an eyebrow.

“I guess it’s the way you’re so sure of yourself all the time, even if you’re scared. And how you can pull other people into things they never thought they’d do, and make them act in ways you’d never expect to see them act. And how you can bring out that competitive spirit in Haru that—” He stops abruptly, and smiles at his hands, clenched loosely into fists on his lap.

“You’re a fucking idiot, did you know that Tachibana Makoto?”

It’s Makoto’s turn to make big, round eyes at him. 

“Why exactly do you think you’re jealous of me anyway?”

“Well I mean, I just told you—”

“No, no, no… I mean, why are you jealous of me and why, for example, am I not jealous of you?”

“But why would you—?”

“Of course,” Rin snorts, “Why did I even fucking bother. Of course you wouldn’t see yourself as someone to be envied.” He sighs. “Next you’ll tell me you don’t even see why Haru’s jealous of Kisumi.”

“Wait, Haru’s what?” says Makoto bemusedly. “Why would he… Well, it’s true he isn’t too fond of him, but I’m sure they’ll be able to work their—”

“Oh my god,” Rin says. “Oh my god, you are unbelievable.”

Makoto blinks.

Rin grabs a chunk of his hair and groans. “Okay,” he says. “Okay.”

He sits up straight, leaning forward, elbows on his thighs. “What do you think the girls—and from what I hear, a few guys too—from your uni, who’ve been trying to get you on a date for months, think of Haru?”

Makoto frowns. “The ones who’ve met him like him a lot, of course,” he shrugs, as if there’s no other fact of life more obvious than loving Haru. “But it takes them a while, I guess. And the ones who don’t know him yet are a little… weird about him? But I’m sure if they just meet then once, they’ll love him immediately.”

Makoto doesn’t notice Rin’s elaborate eyeroll. “Okay,” Rin says slowly, “And what do they know Haru as, to base their opinion of him on till they get to know him?”

“My best friend,” says Makoto at once. “A great friend, an amazing swimmer, artist, and cook, who spends too much time in the bath every morning and always wears swimming trunks everywhere, even when we go out for shopping or dinner after classes finish, just in case—”

“Exactly my point!” Rin says impatiently. “Till they get to meet Haru, all he really is to them is Usurper of Hot Boy’s Weekends. It’s the same with Kisumi—” he presses, ignoring Makoto’s squawk of indignation, “What has he even done to piss Haru off so much? Besides being the annoying kid who doesn’t understand the concept of personal space—and let me tell you, he’s had enough practice with friends like Nagisa for that to really bother him anymore.”

Makoto raises an eyebrow.

“Okay, okay, and me too! Sometimes, I guess,” Rin mutters. “My point still stands, though. There’s no reason for your… _admirers_ to be weird about Haru besides his relationship with you, and no reason for Haru to be—weird, to say the least—about Kisumi, besides _his_ relationship with you.”

“Can you stop saying _relationship_ , it’s weird,” Makoto mutters, flushing lightly now. “I still don’t understand what any of this has to do with me being jealous of you, though.”

“Except it’s not about me, and I think you know it,” says Rin quietly. 

“Well,” says Makoto, and his flush deepens, “It’s just that… It’s selfish of me, I know, but this is the one side to Haru that I haven’t been able to experience in all these years I’ve been his best friend. Feeling him get fired up in the next lane. Being… able to keep up with him. It’s why I asked him to race me in our last year,” he smiles wryly, and shakes his head. 

“You have him in so many other ways, though,” Rin mutters awkwardly, and he’s flushing too now. “And you’re the only one.”

“Yeah,” Makoto says, and he thinks of Haru at the kitchen counter, cooking dinner for them. His fingers brushing against Makoto’s as he takes the coffee can Makoto passes him, on a bench by the waterside, pressed close together one wintry evening. Sitting on the couch in Makoto’s shirt, bumping shoulders with him as they play Animal Crossing together. “I do.” 

He knows, and he’d made peace with it a long time ago. It’s the things it’s helping him really see and put into perspective this time that he isn’t quite prepared for.

Of all the people who know Haru, there are sides to him that only Makoto really gets to see. And Makoto is also the only one who still craves more.

x

When Makoto walks through the doorway, the quiet _I’m home_ slipping through his lips unbidden, Haru is at his kitchen counter, cooking dinner. The shirt he’s wearing is soft and worn, and Makoto wonders how it would feel to curl his fingers in them as he presses his lips to the smooth skin of his neck.

 _I’m home_.

It feels like it would be easy to take those eight paces up to Haru, and do just that. Makoto realises with a wave of guilt that this isn’t the first time he’s thought this, though it had only been subconsciously thus far. This time, for the first time, he’s fully, painful conscious of it.

“Why are you still here?”

Makoto freezes in place.

“Don’t you ever wonder,” Haru says quietly, “Why you’re still there, I’m still here, and… we’re still together?”

There are two places laid out at the table. Makoto holds his breath.

“You were asked out to dinner tonight by three different girls this week,” Haru goes on. He hasn’t turned around, and his voice is still so quiet Makoto can hardly hear it over the steady whirring of the mixer. “My team is partying at some club down in Shibuya. We could be there, with them… We could even be alone, at our own respective flats. But we’re not. I’m going to finish cooking and you’re going to set the table, we’re going to have dinner together, and after you finish your essay and I come out of the bath we’re going to play Animal Crossing till we’re too sleepy to play any more.” 

He turns around at last, and Makoto doesn’t need to even look in his eyes to read him this time because it’s the same thing he’s been asking himself for months now.

_Why are we still like this, Makoto? Why do I feel like even with all these new places, all these new people we could be with, after all these years we’ve been together, there’s nowhere else I’d rather be?_

Makoto passes a hand over his forehead, eyes squeezed shut. Today has been about too many questions, too much talking.

If he has to pinpoint a moment, perhaps things have been changing ever since he let go of Haru’s hand that evening, under the fireworks, so many months ago. 

Or perhaps when he’d seen Haru come towards him at the airport, and saying _Welcome home_ had seemed the most natural thing in the world, and hearing Haru say _I’m home_ had filled him with warmth and emotion fit to burst, and thinking he wouldn’t mind this for the rest of his life. 

Or perhaps it had been the first time he’d cancelled a girl’s offer of a date because he’d already made plans with Haru after their respective classes got over. 

Or perhaps it’s this fight, this talk with Rin, and everything else leading up to this moment, realising he’d always want to say _I’m home_ to Haru, standing like this in his well-worn shirt at the kitchen counter, and that he’d never grow tired of hearing Haru say, _Welcome home_.

Or perhaps it just didn’t matter when it started to change; what mattered was that it had, and perhaps they’d already waited long enough.

Makoto doesn’t know how he ended up halfway across the room, and with the way Haru’s looking at him, also halfway across the room and so close their chests could nearly be touching, he doesn’t think Haru does either. But maybe he shouldn’t be surprised anymore; life has always had a funny way of bringing them closer together every time.

“I’m sorry I lied to you,” he says, “I stayed up all night finishing my essay and slept through my morning shift, and I didn’t want to worry you again because I was taking another shift, so I lied and told you I’d be hanging out with my friends but I didn’t think you’d come to that café after your classes ended—”

“I missed you,” Haru says, face reddening, and Makoto flushes too and realises he’d been rambling. He also realises Haru is very, very close. “I’d barely seen you all week… But I’m proud of you for working so hard, Makoto. I’m so happy you have something you want to work so hard for.”

“I don’t want to make you worry,” Makoto says.

“Let me,” Haru tells him, and he takes Makoto’s hands, linking their fingers together. His face is open, as easy to read as it’s ever been. _I want to be the one who worries about you_. A squeeze to his hand. _I want to be the one who takes care of you._

Makoto takes a moment to just look at him—to finally allow himself to think the things he’s always shut away guiltily at the back recesses of his mind. Haru is beautiful, and he’s the only person Makoto has ever wanted to kiss in all his nineteen years.

And maybe—just maybe, he thinks, watching Haru’s lips part and his breath catch as Makoto rubs the inside of his wrist—Haru might feel the same.

“I’m going to kiss you now,” he says, feeling a little like he’s about to fall into something terrifying, dizzying, and completely like coming home—is that even possible?—and Haru’s eyes widen a fraction, before they flutter shut. 

Makoto curls his fingers in Haru’s soft, worn shirt, and falls.

x

 

They’re sitting on Haru’s couch, pressed up against each other’s sides when they call Rin next weekend, and to the casual observer there isn’t anything out of the ordinary about them. But Rin knows better: he assesses the faint blush on their cheeks, their surreptitiously linked fingers, punches the air and lets out a crow of triumph.

That is till there’s a sound of a door opening and Sousuke appears behind him in nothing but a towel, wondering what the commotion was about, and it’s Rin’s turn to flush and splutter awkwardly.

**Author's Note:**

> This is something I've been wanting to write ever since Eternal Summer aired, because there are a few feelings and conversations between these boys that I feel are inevitable, with the way things turned out. Sorry I'm a little rusty at this fic-writing thing lmao I've been terribly busy this last year but this was something I needed to get out of my system, even if it is a few months late!


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